INTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING COMPETITIVENESS OF LATVIAN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED FURNITURE MANUFACTURERS

The furniture industry is an innovative industry that produces high added value products and its turnover is several billions of euros in Europe, and there mainly work small and medium-sized enterprises (abbreviation - SMEs). Nowadays competitiveness is an essential factor for both a country and its enterprises in the process of dealing with changing market conditions. The global market is changing and for enterprises it is too hard to position themselves and find the way how to differ from other competitors. From 2006 until 2010 a Latvian furniture market value, numbers of employees and enterprises in the sector and its share in GDP has decreased. As a result, there are the serious challenges to be met and increase their competitiveness in domestic and export markets. The author has made an in-depth research into influencing competitiveness factors of SME micro level in the furniture manufacturing industry. The study objective was to identify the key internal factors wich influence the SME of Latvian furniture manufacturers. The aim was to obtain an internal factor of competitiveness assessment of the 30 respondents by random sampling method and expert method of factor assessment. The enterprises need to constantly increase their competitiveness. The internal factors influencing the competitiveness of SMEs are connected with the products, manufacturing of products, financial situation, management and marketing activties. The competitiveness level of Latvia`s SMEs in the furniture manufacturing has been evaluated as average in 70% of cases. Only 27% of the enterprises show a good level of competitiveness.